Article(electronic)February 20, 2013

Emotion work in animal rights activism: A moral-sociological perspective

In: Acta sociologica: journal of the Scandinavian Sociological Association, Volume 56, Issue 1, p. 55-68

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Abstract

Social movement activism requires emotional motivation and entails emotional costs, and, because of this, activists tend to be deeply involved in the management of emotions – or emotion work – and not just in connection with protest events, but also on an everyday basis. Based on a case study of animal rights activism in Sweden, this article identifies five types of emotion work that animal rights activists typically perform: containing, ventilation, ritualization, micro-shocking and normalization of guilt. The emotion work performed by activists, it is argued, is best understood from a moral-sociological perspective building on Durkheim's sociology of morality, based on which the article then outlines key elements of a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of emotion work in social movements.

Languages

English

Publisher

SAGE Publications

ISSN: 1502-3869

DOI

10.1177/0001699312466180

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